


At the Heart of Winter

by mostlikelydefinentlymad



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes Returns, Civil War Is Not A Thing, F/M, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Steve Rogers Feels, Temporarily Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:05:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6102754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlikelydefinentlymad/pseuds/mostlikelydefinentlymad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thoughts tumble around in a blond head, day in, day out; and he comes to the conclusion that, despite the deepest pining of his heart for the man who wears their entire shared story on his skin, just because a person can remember something does not necessarily mean that they know its value. He thinks of his friend, the spy, and when he talks again to his fellow soldier, they agree. She's the theory, he's the proof; built of fear and pain, they're as cold and blank as the snow, and he, at least for the moment, is just as impressionable and soft. She is entirely as disorienting and destructive. Both of them are innocent on some levels, horrifyingly so, and yet they bleed guilt from every pore and exude murder in every step.</p><p>And this so-called hero is just a sad sort of guy with a glorified trashcan lid (and a slight obsession with the past); his pal's just a stressed man with metal wings (and a tendency to never want to kill the spider), but both of them are willing to try. To maybe make it better, if only a little.</p><p>After all, isn't trying the first step to success?</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Heart of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for your interest in our fic.
> 
> the song that provided us with the title is Battle Scars, by Paradise Fears.
> 
> if you like, listen to our playlist [here on youtube.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrP5ZxeGQmc&list=PL8o4j57gvhqygWciME-V-tE4IU0fOzE4o&index=6) a spotify version is under construction.

**_Central Bucharest, Romania_ **  
**_Local time: 13:17_ **

“You have to let him leave.”

“I don’t want to let him leave. He remembers me.”

Sam’s eyes were unwavering, and he held Steve’s arms at the wrists, his grip as tight as he could muster. The blond had asked him to stay to the plan, and preventing Bucky from escaping so that Steve could hug him and cry was definitely not part of the plan.

In the next room, a chair scraped against the floor, metal squealed almost unhappily against concrete, and here, in this room, Steve twitched, nervously licking his lips. “Sam, please. He’s right there. We found him.”

Sighing, the darker man shook his head. “I know we found him, but he’ll be fine. At most, it’ll take us a little while to track him. But we have to wait, no matter how excited you are about him being al-”

Interrupted by a crack and the tiny sound of splinters (there went one or both of the chairs) hitting everything else that was in the room, Sam held back a frustrated groan. Until there was a smashing noise from what he knew would be their target breaking the window, he was relentless in his restraint. A few minutes dragged by, and then Sam let go, watching as Steve dashed into the room Bucky had been in - the worn chair now abandoned, the shattered window letting in the noise and the breeze off the street.

His face fell and Sam felt the overwhelming need to comfort him but that wasn’t the kind of man Steve was; his only comfort had disappeared with Bucky.

“We have to follow him.”

“Steve, think about it. He has had his every movement dictated for decades, do you really think that hunting him is a good idea?”

The chair scraped on the concrete floor once more as Steve took Bucky’s place and buried his face in his hands.

“Where do we go from here? I don’t know if I can do this, Sam.” His voice was strained, loaded with stress and the distant thunder of a desperate storm.

“You have to do this, Steve. I’m leaving on a flight back to JFK in five hours, and it’ll just be you. Think about it. When you corner a frightened animal, what happens?” Sam said, trying to reason with Steve. It didn’t always work, but it was certainly worth a try.

Steve hesitated, and then he sighed heavily, knowing there was no way around the answer. “It attacks.”

“Exactly. Is that the way you want this to go?”

“No. But I don’t want to lose him again, Sam.”

Sam hated being harsh with Steve, but it was the only way he could get him to listen, to use his brain instead of his usual strategy of rushing in and trying to save the day without a plan.

“Okay. Then I need you to listen to me...this is what we’re going to do.”

Words blurred together as Steve nodded along. He felt numb. Gutted down to the core. This was the shape his grief took; a slow and painful process that consisted of false hope and fleeting fragments that he couldn’t piece together. He had heard that some people never moved past the denial stage, and he recognized that, perhaps, that was where he’d remain until Bucky was no longer running like his life depended on it. The thing about denial, however was that he woke up every morning, same as the last, and felt that burning tug of hope in his chest only for it to be extinguished before it could manifest as something tangible. It felt like dousing himself in gasoline and striking the match, and then being pushed into water so cold that though the fire died in a hot burst of steam, the burning never stopped, but only changed.

“Now,” Sam said, “I have to go to the hotel to grab my stuff, and then go to the airport. Suit up, okay? And stay alert to your phone in case we need your help at home.”

* * *

 

 **_On the southern outskirts of Bucharest, Romania_ **  
**_Local time: 13:44_ **

Boots, scuffed and worn from too many days spent trying to find answers, trying to outrun his own demons, dragged tired along the pavement. More than anything, more than life, a part of the Soldier, the Bucky part, had wanted to stay with Steve. That same part hated the idea of leaving him behind, but as a whole man, the Winter Soldier wasn’t ready to stay in any place yet.

The look of pure open affection on Steve’s face when Winter Soldier had clawed through his memories for Steve’s mother’s name and then recalled the fact that Steve had been too big for his beaten-up shoes (they’d argued over this back then, Bucky remembered that; he’d try to give a pair of his to Steve and Steve would stubbornly refuse - _“they’re too big anyway, Buck”_ \- as he stuffed newspaper into his own to make them fit) had been almost too much for him to handle. If he’d stayed, it would’ve only hurt Steve (because who the fuck was he anymore?) and he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t take the pressure of Steve’s very presence right now, so he’d bolted. All his life he’d been in the blond’s corner; picking off bullies and listening to rattling coughs in the middle of the night, but he couldn’t protect Steve from the monster Hydra had created. From himself.

No, until the monster in him was neutralized, this was his fight. He would not drag anyone else into it.

_**CORE TASK: IDENTIFY CONNECTION BETWEEN SELF (DESIGNATED WINTER SOLDIER) AND ENCRYPTED MEMORIES IN STORAGE.** _

_**EMOTIONAL CAPACITY AVAILABLE FOR USE. PROCEED WITH DECRYPTION OF MEMORY?** _

Winter Soldier hesitated, but then he nodded minutely, almost to himself, and then he bowed his head and continued to walk.

In the flashes of memory he had to himself, he could see himself as a weapon, a savage ruthless assassin, the Winter Soldier, a machine - no.

_**PROCESS ENDED.** _

He had a name now, a birthdate, a past, and at least one person in the world who saw his scars and didn’t turn away with horror or reflect nothing but pity back at him. He was, if not Bucky, and least James. Gathering his wits, he began to form an idea in his mind of what the next stage of his task would be.

 _ **PRIMARY DIRECTIVE:**_ Acquire necessities for egress from city.  
_**REQUIRED RESOURCES:**_ Dry and portable food, sturdy backpack, matches, extra ammunition.  
_**DESIRED ITEMS:**_ Disposable towelettes, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, chapstick.

As he entered a store, one of the cheap secondhand sort, he checked visually for the exits, then busied himself picking through a bin of hats, and picking similarly through his mind.

[“Need a hand, young man?”] He whirled, ready to fight, but when he saw what he was ‘up against’, James tried very hard not to lash out.

An old woman’s friendly face, complete with crow’s feet about the eyes, graying hair, and an aura built of entirely too much cheap perfume enveloping her, smiled at him. She meant well, he told himself, as he crammed his left hand into his jeans. It was probably paranoid of him, but he wasn’t taking any chances, even if it was mostly covered with a glove; there was never really enough paranoia in him on the topic of HYDRA finding out about his movements just because he wasn’t careful.

[“Backpack?”] James asked, his Romanian slightly unsteady, but that could be dismissed for timidity.

[“Right over here, dear. I’m afraid that we only have two as donations have been low… See, we take what people donate and sew it up if it needs mending. If you’re looking for a large one, this blue one here might fit your needs. It came in last week.”]

He nodded and examined the backpack. It was large, as she’d said, and had plenty of compartments in which to tuck all his items. His heart stuttered, panic sinking cold claws into his mind, upon seeing the clip to fasten it over his chest; it called up the memory of his machine rifle harness being fastened across his chest, and of every breath dragged back into his numb with the clip on his sternum, of every mission report, of every time it was unfastened and he was placed in the chair… Every time they took him back to the vault. It brought back to his awareness a smell like money, like walls lined with gold and heirlooms and hundreds of millions of dollars. It brought back the feeling of restraints, the bitterness of a cold damp room, the resistance of a bite-guard, custom made, as he forced his jaw to scream his agonies on deaf ears, and that too-familiar feeling like he might burst into flame from the electricity surging through his nervous system, overloading his body until his mind went black again.

Clutching at the table to keep from falling, he found himself hyperventilating, his head low as the woman beside him realized what was going on.

[“Young man, are you okay? Do you need a cup of water? Oh, it’s anxiety, I’m sure. My granddaughter suffers from it as well. I’ll go get you that water, now, alright? You just stay here.”] He did not respond, because he could barely hear; his ears felt stuffed with cotton, and as the woman hurried away, his empty stomach lurched. The room was spinning and Bucky felt nauseous; the tiny thrift store had morphed into a bank vault, far from prying eyes, where no one could hear him scream.

_**UNIT RESET.** _

His metal hand made its way out of his pocket, clutching the backpack to his chest as hard as he could, and he sank to the floor behind a rack, heaving breaths in and out as the woman returned with the water, sympathy in her eyes.

[“Small sips,”] she said, offering him the cup, which he took with his shaking right hand, the other hand still clinging to that backpack with all his might.

The water was lukewarm on his tongue and his hand nearly crushed the styrofoam cup as he attempted to regain control of his body. He hated this, hated the paralyzing fear that snuck up on him when he least expected it, because of little things. He hated himself for not being fearless, for not being strong, because it made running all the harder for him.

Ten minutes later and a cup of water down, his breathing had evened out and the spasms of fear crashing through his body had died down to a slight tremble.

The older woman reached out to touch him, perhaps in an attempt to console him, and, noting how he flinched and glared like a scared animal, retracted her hand. She was certainly unnerved, but there was a softness in her eyes.

[“You seem like a nice young man. I’m going to knock this price right off. You can have the backpack and I’ll throw in a t-shirt or two. How’s that?”] The old woman said, and he shook his head.

[“I have cash,”] James mumbled, still clinging to the backpack.

[“Nonsense. Let me just go get those shirts for you. Hmm I’d say you’re a medium, same as my grandson. I’ll be right back.”]

He took that moment and contemplated leaving the pack behind and taking the other, but the green one was too small. The blue one had multiple compartments and appeared to be made of higher quality material; it would hold up better to the stress of his lifestyle. Besides, there was nowhere else he could go. He couldn’t risk another panic attack in public, and trying to shop at a bigger store would probably only compound his stress.

Coming back with a few folded shirts, she offered him the clothing with a smile. [“Here you are, dear. Try some herbal tea for that anxiety, I’ve heard chamomile helps.”]

If only she knew that all of the tea in the world couldn’t soothe his frayed nerves.

[“Thank you,”] he mumbled as he stuffed the items into his pack and swing it over his shoulder by a single strap. On his way out, the opposite strap caught on the door, and as he disentangled it from the doorknob, the bell on the door tinkled softly. The sound shook something loose inside of him, something shiny and valuable. Freezing in the doorway, a look of concentration on his  
face, James struggled to latch onto a stubborn memory. It manifested as shards, slowly moving into place, and then it melted, glass over flame, into a clear picture. It became a window, as it were, into the past.

_He was spending almost all his days after school (and Saturday and Sunday, too) behind the counter of a small grocery store, and whenever lunch came, the bell above the door would ring. It usually heralded the arrival of Steve, who would never pass the store by on a day with an opportunity to stop in. Steve visiting him and sharing those meager portions of stale bread while the Great Depression raged in the background, wearing the brightest smiles, made every day of rough labor, verbal abuse, and earning money he could barely feed them both with worth it._

Pain exploded behind his eyes, and he grit his teeth against the agony, walking out of the store and pulling his cap low. It seemed that every part of his past, be it good or bad, came with anguish and a jolt of physical pain, but he was going to keep this memory. He was going to bury it deep within his chest where the electric fingers of the wiping chair couldn’t snatch it away again. He’d guard it with his life, hoard it in his memory book like a rare diamond. When the barren wasteland of his life spat up knights against him, he would guard it with all his power, even when the blades of fear and terror were pressing like razor sharp teeth against his jugular.

He was his own man, now, alone in a world he only knew the weaponry of. James was flesh and blood, machine no more, and he is painfully human. He was hot in all these layers under the sun, but the feeling is real, and it was good. It was his, and only his sleepless nights ever cultivated a longing for the ice that had been his blanket for seventy years.

Flexing his hands mindlessly in the sunshine, he snapped out of his musings when he heard the voice of a child exclaim in Romanian, [“Mommy, look! That man has a shiny arm!”]

_**COVER POSSIBLY COMPROMISED.  
ASSESS SITUATION.** _

The little boy that had spoken was roughly five years old with scruffy brown hair and grey-blue eyes. Something about his smile, with the missing tooth, made James hurt, but he couldn’t pinpoint why, and he didn’t have the time to try.

_“Bucky, wait up!”_

After giving the child a confused look, James ( _“Bucky!”_ ) crammed his hand further down into his pocket and hurried away with his head low, before the child’s mother could respond, before she could see him and scream in horror before dragging her child away as if James ( _“Buck?”_ ) were incapable of keeping himself from injuring the child. She would have been right to scream, he mused, pausing at a newsstand and pretending to read the headlines. He stood statue still, porcelain and ivory with dark lines on his skin where veins should be and he held his breath until the risk of anyone noticing him again passed.

_“Bucky, whatcha waitin’ ‘round for now? C’mon!”_

“Nothin’.” Bucky murmured to himself, and taking the name everyone in his shattered memory was calling him, he melted into the crowd again, becoming invisible in the crush of bodies as he made his way back to where he had been hiding for a while.

_**NO THREAT IDENTIFIED.  
PROTOCOL: DISAPPEAR.** _

* * *

  
_**In the eastern portion of Bucharest, Romania  
Local time: 15:05** _

Bucky was lucky they hadn’t cut off the water to the apartment he was hiding in; it was still on the market, technically, so his daily showers, only two minutes on the most powerful spray setting, were precisely measured so as to not arouse the attention of the authorities with water and power bills stacking up on an apartment listed as empty. What little he used would be of no consequence, if he stayed careful.

Layering on his clean, “new” shirts, then getting his jackets on, he switched out his baseball cap for a flat-billed cap (acquired in London) and his black gloves for soft brown leather ones he’d picked up a few months earlier in Vienna.

His essentials were mostly packed into his backpack, and he swung it up with a grunt onto his capable (and also aching) shoulders. Gazing down at the two ends of the clip, he steeled himself, then gripped one in each gloved hand and pushed them together.

_click._

The backpack strap snapped into place across his chest and it brought to mind thick restraints over his chest, arms, and legs to prevent him from lashing out, scalpels and a sketchy room that contained medical equipment and offered him nothing beyond endless agony.

Bile churning in his empty stomach did strange things in the wake of his rising discomfort, and the feeling threatened to give way to actual sickness. He felt as if his body was continuously being pricked with needles, cold and unyielding, and as he laid his head against the tile after sinking to the floor, the ground at his feet shifted and morphed into a memory he’d rather forget.

_He was in a chair in the center of that same cold vault that had consumed his mind before, shaking, lashing out at anyone that dared to try and touch him._

_“Sir, he’s refusing to comply.”_

_“Then wipe him. Start over.”_

_There were voices, voices around him, talking about him, talking about killing his mind with a machine, and he covered his ears, pressing his fingers the tangled waves of his dull hair and fisting them in, pulling nervously._

_“We can’t get him to sit still, he’s too strong.”_

_The words were muffled, but they were there. He could still hear them. He could still hear._

_HE. COULD. STILL._

_“Very well then, we’ll have to do this the hard way. Strap him in.” Before he could strike, his wrists were being grabbed, and when he thrashed, a shock baton was applied to the back of his neck, forcing him to relent as gloved hands held him to the armrests. The mouth guard, unyielding under the crush of his teeth, was crammed into place as he screamed, muffling the sound and keeping him from biting his tongue open._

_HEAR._

_“Let’s see you punch your way out of this one.” The restrains snapped into place, and the machine descended over his panicked face._

_THEM._

_The electricity shot through his head, lighting his every nerve on fire as he tried to cling to the fragile things he’d remembered. His name, his number, his rank._

_Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038..._  
_...James Buchanan… 32557038..._  
…Buchanan… 3255703…  
325- and then that was gone.

_He could feel the restraints biting into his skin as he arched and sobbed, crying the first name on his tongue around his mouthpiece, even as who it was faded from his mind into nothing but stars and light and fire._

_**CONNECTION FOUND BETWEEN MEMORIES AND SELF.** _

_**MISSING LINK TO COMPLETION OF DECRYPTION IDENTIFIED.** _

Snapping out of it, Bucky scrambled to his feet and checked the plastic Captain America watch he’d stolen at the Smithsonian two years prior. It had held up well, and it was waterproof, which had served him well over the years, though he’d initially taken it to jog his memory, he felt a bit guilty now that his memories were coaxing out his personality and his morals. Checking the time, he still had a window to work with. Running out of the apartment after making sure nothing was left behind that might identify him, he took the staircase three steps down at a time, and when he hit the sidewalk, he sprinted down the street in the shadow of the buildings, his mind and heart racing as he ran like his life depended on it to Henri Coandă International Airport.

_**DIRECTIVE REVISION PENDING.** _

_**PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: FIND STEVE ROGERS.** _

* * *

 

_**Otopeni, Romania  
Local time: 16:39** _

Henri Coandă International Airport was a pain in the ass to navigate, given that Sam’s Romanian was minimal, but he’d made it more or less okay. He’d probably paid the taxi driver too much; he was no good at the leu-dollar exchange rate, but it was okay. Everything, in the end, paid itself back.

The airport terminal was bustling with families on vacation, newlyweds on their honeymoon, businessmen traveling to foreign countries with briefcase in hand, and Sam, who just wanted to make it to his destination in one piece.

He had been, admittedly, sort of grateful for the chance to leave; Natasha had phoned him two days ago with an urgent message - backup was needed back in New York. She’d said that it was “time that the bird took back his wings”, and he’d booked a flight the next day. He’d left Steve to his hunting, trusting the other could stick to the plan. This, honestly, was not exactly what Sam was used to, and while helping Steve mattered, he was no supersoldier, and it was downright tiring. But Bucky hunt and mission backup aside, he missed Natasha. Things between them were a lovely change of pace; they were slow and quiet and just… Good. They were easy with each other, and he could swear for a moment that if not for all the sturm und drang of their life as Avengers, they’d be dating proper. He, at least, had developed some… gentler feelings for the feisty redhead with a gun in her hand and a chip on her shoulder. For him, helping her was not a question of if, it was a question of when.

If she called, he would do his damnedest to be there to help, and while he’d do the same for any of his friends, not all his friends made his heart leap into this throat the way she did when she said his name.

He was pressing his way past a screaming child and his frazzled mother when he saw it: the glint of metal against harsh fluorescent lighting. Bucky had succeeded at covering it for the most part but his fingertips were exposed to the light as he stalked ahead, pushing his way through the crowds. There was no question about who the man was… but why was he here? Sam couldn’t imagine how overwhelmed he must have been feeling right then, with voices meshing together until they were nothing more than a loud rush of dialects and the intercom repeating in a flat tone that Sam’s flight had been delayed.

That worked in his favor at least, one thing actually going right in a day where everything had gone wrong. He’d lost his house keys (in Romania), burned the coffee, and nearly missed his flight. Steve, at least, would benefit from his poor timing.

The phone was heavy in his hand, fingers fumbling against the keys as he tapped in Steve’s number. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries - time is a luxury that they cannot afford.

“Sam?”

"Spotted him here. Still got eyes on him.”

"What? How...?"

"No idea, but that's definitely him, with how he's hiding his hand."

"Location?" Steve asked urgently, and Sam could hear his shield thump into place against his back. The other was ready to move, and he was glad of the chance he had now to curtail what would probably have been stupid behavior on Steve’s part.

"Henri Coandă International. Ten, max twelve miles from you. You think this is his lair?"

"He's not a supervillain." Steve muttered, deliberately avoiding the question, and Sam laughed briefly.

"But he's pretty much a dangerous python. Don't let him bite you, okay? I like wiping the floor with your ass on karaoke night."

* * *

 

**_Near the center of Bucharest, Romania  
Local time: 16:44_ **

He could have jogged and still made it in under thirty minutes, but to say that Steve wasn’t running himself as hard as his body could give would have been an absolute lie. If Sam had eyes on Bucky, there was no chance in Hell that Steve would let him get away again.

Dodging bodies and posts and vehicles, jumping acrobatically over obstacles in the streets, and skidding around corners while running something like 40 miles per hour wasn’t exactly difficult for Steve; it was Bucharest itself that presented the challenge. The journey down winding streets was dizzying, borderline sickening, but then the main road to Otopeni was easy; all he had to do was remind himself not to race the cars tearing past him on their way to the airport.

Steadying his mind with what was left of his worn out sanity, Steve, in full Captain America gear, his trusty shield on his back, slowed to a walk as he approached the door into the airport.

“Well, Henri,” He muttered, crossing himself once, “let’s see what you’ve got for me.”

Stepping in, he looked around at the people, disregarding the flash of phones taking pictures of him, focusing instead on finding either Sam or Bucky. Spotting Sam in the security check line, he took a step toward the man before the other Avenger had heard the commotion surrounding Captain America pointed in the direction of the check-in counters. Moving in that direction, Steve scanned the crowds, squeezing past people, looking at any man with brown hair carefully. Skirting past a man wearing a cap and looking through his wallet, Steve cupped his hands to his mouth, and, drawing in a deep breath, called out, “BUCKY, WHERE ARE YOU?”

“Don’t have to yell, you know. I’m right here.”

Turning on his heel, Steve looked at the man sitting beside a blue backpack, and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest at that smile.

Despite the unshaven face and the limp, long hair that framed it, Steve knew those eyes, and, swallowing back his tears and shooing away the avid Cap fans that wanted his attention, he sank into the chair beside Bucky with a smile.

“Hey… Hey.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos? comments? song suggestions? leave them here!
> 
> you can find us on tumblr, too! just click on the links below.
> 
>  
> 
> [pastel pink steve](http://www.teanari.tumblr.com/)  
> [leaf green bucky](http://www.givemebackmybucky.tumblr.com/)


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